Peace Sentry Sheds Light On Age-old Truths

Jim Spencer

January 16, 1991|By JIM SPENCER Staff Writer

It was 9:30 in the morning, time for the changing of the guard. The solitary sentry who sat watch over the sanctuary at Warwick Memorial United Methodist Church gave way to her replacement, a woman carrying a single, long-stemmed yellow rose.

The new guardian sat briefly in a pew midway up the church, then walked slowly to the altar and left her flower between a pair of white candles. The candles had burned since 6 the night before, when the vigil for peace in the Persian Gulf began. At this moment their glow was all but obliterated by the sunlight streaming through the stained glass window that stretched from floor to ceiling behind them.

The paltry light cast by the candles seemed symbolic of the dark days ahead. There was no reason to think that an international force led by the United States would not go to war with Iraq, probably within a matter of days. The secretary general of the United Nations had been unable to convince Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to leave Kuwait, a country Saddam's army took over in August. President Bush was standing firm on the Tuesday midnight deadline for withdrawal.

And yet, a parade of people continued to stand watch over the flickering candles.

The current sentinel, a tall, slender woman, returned to her seat and bowed her head. Suddenly, the scream of a fire engine's siren shattered the silence in the sanctuary and sparked a chorus of barking dogs.

The noise was nothing less than an intrusion, but the lady didn't stir. She would not have her moment spoiled the way events in the Middle East threaten the resolve of the vigilant around the world.

She just sat there, pitting her faith against the fait accompli.

I don't know what she thought her chances were. I chose not to interrupt her meditation. But as I sat watching in the church, I decided that world events are a lot like the stained glass window that covers the front wall at Warwick Memorial.

At first it seems like a completely abstract design. But if you study it long enough, images emerge from the chaos of color. A dove, wings spread, glides downward on the righthand side. A flame in rich shades of red and orange snakes its way up on the left. In the upper right hand corner is a giant hand, palm turned outward with a thumb and two fingers extended toward earth.

It represents the hand of God. At the moment it seemed anything but omnipotent.

Somehow that didn't matter to the sentries of the sanctuary who had manned their posts for 15 hours.

While I pondered their devotion, I started to re-read a book I encountered 10 years ago, a series of sermons called "The Will of God," written by an English clergyman during World War II.

The clergyman, Leslie Weatherhead, preached the sermons to parishioners who had lost family members, friends and homes in the war. He was unable to deliver the sermons from his own pulpit, because the Nazis destroyed his church during the Battle of Britain.

The will of God, he told his congregation, is not that people should be killed. That "is the will of the enemy ... the evil forces we are fighting."

The will of God, said Weatherhead, is that we "react to evil positively and creatively as to wrest good out of evil circumstances . . .

"I can take hold of these circumstances and win something from them that will bring harmony to my nature, which will contribute to the happiness and service of the world . . .

"What one needs is not discernment, but grit ... fortitude, courage, faith, determination and perseverance ..."

"When we say that God is omnipotent, we mean that nothing can happen which can finally defeat him ..."

I looked up from reading to find a middle-aged man entering the sanctuary. Walking quietly to the altar, he carefully replaced the nearly spent can dles with fresh ones, making sure that one candle remained lit at all times.

It was a powerful gesture, perhaps not powerful enough to get Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait or to keep American blood from flowing in the Persian Gulf, but certainly powerful enough to prove that Leslie Weatherhead's words are as important today as they were 50 years ago:

"These are days full of loss and pain, of suffering and sorrow. But they are not days of waste."